They also are urging people to return home if they're already overseas.

Joining us now is Chad Wolf, acting secretary for the Department of Homeland Security.

Thank you so much for joining us, Chad.

We appreciate it.

So can you give us a sense of how these restrictions are actually gonna work?

Is it something that you can enforce or just a guideline?

Well, no, These are these are actually restrictions.

So again, the Department of State put these out.

Every American should certainly adhere to these restrictions.

It again asking you not to travel and also really the restrictions that the President put in place for over 30 countries that we have in place.

Now again, Americans are returning home.

They can continue to return home.

Under these restrictions, will will again identify them, look at them medically and do a number of checks as they come back into the country.

So that's what we're doing now.

D.

H s and CVP have screened over 150,000 folks thus far and will continue to do that now.

This only impacts international travel.

What about domestic travel?

We possibly see any restrictions there.

Well, we'll continue to look a domestic travel again as our medical strategy continues to evolve.

Right now, we have no immediate plans for restrictions on domestic travel.

But we continue to say that all options are on the table to deal with the virus.

The president has already announced the closure of the Canadian border to non essential traffic.

Will you do the same with Mexico?

Well, we're certainly taking a look at that.

And again, what the president announced was not closing the border on Canada.

This is actually talking about keeping the border open to a central travel to that trade and travel, that economic trade at the commerce that we need to keep the economy going.

So we're certainly doing that with our Canadians.

We hope to reach an agreement here within the next hours.

Today's with our Mexican counterparts again to do very same similar restrictions on our southwest border.

Now we saw how China reacted with a massive shutdown, and we saw how Italy has responded with some gradual quarantines.

Now there are more deaths in Italy than in China, does the U.

S.

Government need to be more aggressive and maybe consider a mandatory 30 days?

Shut down or what do you perhaps have in your tool kit?

Well, the task force meets every day, and we are being very aggressive with the guidelines, The information that we're putting out across the board that will just say that the president has been very, very aggressive on this front.

We really took unprecedented actions in stopping travel from China Iran in additional 26 countries in Europe and will continue to look at additional travel restrictions as we need to hear closer to home.

We're starting to do that with Canada and with Mexico, and we need to look at all travelers that are coming into the country both through legal ports of entry and illegal ports of entry and illegal means.

So we're certainly doing that.

We're gonna put continue to lean forward aggressively, making sure that we're protecting the American people were protecting the D.

H s work force and the officers on the front lines.

These air officers that are also every day and additionally dealing with current virus are also keeping out terrorists, drug smugglers, narcotics traffickers and everything under everything.

So we need to make sure that they stay healthy.

They stay safe, and we need to put measures in to do just that.

Why so much mixed messaging coming out of the administration of two weeks ago?

We had the HHS secretary a czar on and he told me, Quote, There is no testing kit Shortage.

Never been a time where tests were unavailable.

Knowing what you know now, do you think that that was in any way accurate?

I do.

I do believe it's accurate, So I think we continue to work the testing front again.

The task force is solely focused on this.

We have a number of individuals on the task force, that air leaning ahead and again, we have testing not only from CDC but also our commercial, the commercial labs out there as well.

So we're hitting on all fronts.

There's a lot of information that we pump out every day.

The vice president is solely focused on this issue.

We provide information every day about new testing locations.

We have the drive through testing facilities that we're rolling out, eh?

So we're doing Maur each and every day and providing more testing capabilities.

Every governor that needs that what you saw today when the president visited FEMA was making sure that that emergency response capability that FEMA has that they exercise over 47 to 50 times last year in a major way is now being put against this effort.

So the states the governor's out there.

They know exactly how that process works there.

Emergency operation centers.

Their emergency managers know exactly how that works with FEMA eso we're continuing to improve that process.

We now have FEMA leading the coordination for the federal government.

I think you're going to see even more and more progress every day.

But just to follow up on that for a moment we have heard from governors.

We talked to Senator Manchin just the other day.

He said that West Virginia they only had 500 tests for the entire state.

There are concerns about swab shortages, which would allow you to not even be able to perform tests if necessary.

And their requirements, like everyone who wants a test, can't get tested.

And I think that we've seen it's like three out of four people are Racists symptomatic, and they don't know that they're passing it along because they can't get tested.

So what I think folks need to appreciate is we need to make sure that we are providing the supplies, the testing, all the information and the materials to the most affected areas in the country.

And so that's our strategy.

That continues to be our strategy.

So places like West Virginia and others that have a very low case amount.

We need to make sure that the folks in Washington state in California and New York and other places making sure that they have the information they have, the materials they have the swabs, the test to make sure that they will continue to focus on areas that need it the most will continue to make sure that all 50 states off all territories have the information.

I have the test, have the swabs that they need, and again, we're working with our commercial partners to do that on we and we're just doing that.

We're making progress every day and again, the task force we hold regular press conferences, regular communication with the American people providing that information theme, of course, falls under D.

H s and was only recently mobilized to respond.

Why didn't that happen sooner?

Well, they've actually been mobilized from the start.

So they've been there for providing that resource and that support to HHS.

The NRCC has been activated for some time.

What I think you've seen now is they've been activated to a level one, which is what we would normally do in a major, major hurricane natural disaster.

A man made disaster.

And so they again they are leading the federal coordination.

They'll continue to rely on HHS and the medical experts in their opinion, to drive that.

But what we're utilizing theme before now is to making sure to provide that coordination again.

Governors in all 50 states territories know what that process looks like.

Their request can go through the FEMA pipes and channels.

They'll get evaluated in the information and the resource is that they need.

We'll get back to it very quickly.

All right.

Secretary Wolf, we appreciate your time.

Thank you so much.

Great.

Thank you.

Hi, everyone.

George Stephanopoulos here.

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